Agent-X Comics | Agent-X Comics

Help the prince

January 30, 2011 Agent X 6 Comments

The Nigerian Prince only wants to reward you for helping him out.

Seriously, if there actually is (now or in the future) a Nigerian Prince, who finds themselves unable to move money from their bank accounts, they will be so totally stuck.
It will be like the boy who cried wolf. No-one would believe that the request for help is true, since pretty much everyone in the world knows about the infamous “Nigerian Prince Money” email scam.

Yet, even though everybody seemingly knows of this scam, it still goes on.
Why?
Simple. PEOPLE STILL FALL FOR IT.

Scam Detectives recently posted a very rare interview with a “Nigerian scammer” which is an interesting read.
The part I found so amazing, and at the same time, so appalling, is that he claimed these scammers still make “on average, about $7,500 (£4,600)” per victim.
Seriously? That is a ridiculous amount of money to be getting from people in this day and age, via a scam that I had believed a majority of people were aware of. But, obviously, many people are still in the dark about the scam.

To be fair, the swindle (officially known as a 419 scam in USA) has many variations on it’s core theme, which may confuse people.
We do hear reports of some people who are caught by these scams, such as here, but I am sure there are many others that work hard to keep it very quiet.

So, I would encourage you all to read about the most common scams of the past decade and then remember : “Always think before you reply”

Touch MySpace

February 6, 2011 Agent X 1 Comment

In the future, you will be able to touch the internet directly.

As technology advances, we seek new and better ways to interact with computers and data.
The earliest method of interaction with computers was the mouse, and this is still the most popular way of working with a computer to this day.

Voice interaction has been tried with varying success.
Joysticks & control pads work well, but mainly for gaming environments.

But the “latest and greatest” method is via a touch screen. Users are able to almost touch the data that they want to interact with.
But soon, even this will be outdated.

The next stage is touted to be a fully immersive experience, such as virtual reality, or via holographic displays,such as those seen in movies like “The Minority Report”. Which, you have to admit, is pretty cool.

If the fun of a touch screen experience shows us anything, it is that being able to massage your data by actually sticking your fingers in, is going to be pretty fantastic. but only as long as the experience goes one way.

I would hate to get anything stuck on my hands after visiting a less than desirable website…

Hijacked Account

February 13, 2011 Agent X 2 Comments

If your twitter account gets hacked and it has more useful tweets than what you normally post, has a crime been committed?

There are many accounts out there that could do with a good hi-jacking, if only for no other reason than to remind the owners that they exist. I am not referring to the thousands of abandoned accounts that exist on twitter.
I mean all the accounts that are used (primarily by businesses) basically as another feed channel for their blog posts or facebook page updates.

If you look around, you will find these accounts everywhere.
They get regular updates added to then, but they are always a link to the latest blog or update over on another site.
When you look through the stream on these accounts, you will not see one single reply. Why is this?
Because the account owners simply have it so that they can say “Oh yes, I AM on twitter too” but they never actually visit it to understand how to use it properly. For them, it is a marketing channel and it ticks another box on the Social media list that they feel they need to complete.

So, having an account like this hacked & getting some replies in the stream would actually be an improvement.
I am not condoning hacking in any way, but I can see how it could produce a good result at times.

For the eagle-eyed followers among you, you may recognise the guys in this comic. It is good to see that they seem to have finally gotten jobs after all.

Obey the rules

February 20, 2011 Agent X 7 Comments

Sometimes companies can have social media policies that do far more harm than good.

The “social media policy” is something that many of us can now find in our company handbooks or OH&S policies.
Apparently, only 29% of companies have a formal policy on employee social media usage in place, but of those that do, many seem to have gone a little overboard and made them overly strict.

While it is important for companies to set out guidelines on how employees can use online media while during work hours (an sometimes even dictating how they use it out-of-hours) these policies need to be flexible enough not to create issues every time an employee posts something.

Strict rules over social media use in the workplace, can lead to lawsuits and plenty of bad press – precisely the kind of thing these policies are trying to prevent.

There are many reports of people being fired due to posts on twitter and facebook. There is even a website documenting cases of people being “facebook fired“.
Some stories are funny due to the sheer ignorance shown by the poster like this one.
Others can be far more serious – such as an AP reporter being reprimanded for a facebook post, teachers being let go or being fired for letting off steam about work in your own time.

It is obvious that many businesses are unsure how or what to do regarding policing their employees & social media. But being dictatorially strict about it is definitely not the answer.
If you are looking to write a policy for how your staff use social media soon, why not browse through this library of Social Media policies from other companies, and choose the best course of action for your organisation?

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